A central focus of my research is to connect individual-level processes to population-level outcomes. These cross-scale interactions are key to understanding things like eco-evolutionary dynamics, shifts in demography, population stability, and disease outbreaks. Moreover, connecting multiple scales of biological organization is proving increasingly crucial for addressing public health challenges such as the development of “evolution-proof” strategies to slow the evolution of virulence and antibiotic resistance.

My research program emphasizes the use of multi-disciplinary and quantitative approaches to science. My research lies at the interface of three traditionally separate bodies of research: consumer-resource ecology, physiology, and evolutionary epidemiology. I work within several focal systems and have developed collaborations with mathematicians, physiologists, ecologists, and conservation managers. Working across disciplines helps me think ‘outside the box’ and develop a unique skillset in meditating across multi-disciplinary teams.

My aim is that by bringing a theory-guided approach and an ecological lens to these important questions, the Hite lab will become a leader in translational research. To test (and advance) theory, my research program uses a variety of lab-based and natural systems as case-studies including freshwater zooplankton and fruit flies and both bacterial and fungal pathogens.

I am a quantitative eco-evolutionary biologist. My research lies at the interface of physiology, ecology, and evolutionary epidemiology. Broadly, I study how ecological variation shapes the interaction between individual life histories and the dynamics of populations and communities.

My approach integrates empirical and observational data with innovative statistical approaches (e.g., machine learning) and mathematical modeling. I use theory from population ecology and evolutionary epidemiology as a guide to develop and test general, yet mechanistic models that advance multiple fields.

The central goal of research in the lab is to develop and apply quantitative tools to more accurately forecast and manage infectious disease. Much of our work focuses on infectious diseases at the wildlife, livestock, human interface. We blend molecular and field data with large-scale GIS, statistical, bioinformatics, and computational modeling techniques. An emerging paradigm in epidemiology is the use of models to understand feedbacks across multiple scales (e.g., individual to population- or herd-level, local to global). Historically, modeling in epidemiology has primarily relied on statistical or compartmental models that focus on a single scale. Cross-scale approaches can capture dynamic eco-evolutionary feedbacks between the environment, host traits, and pathogen traits like virulence and drug resistance. Research in the lab seeks to use existing theory as a guide and help refine models with data to make general yet mechanistic and broadly applicable predictions. Thus, we work with multiple host-pathogen systems, including food- and water-borne pathogens and helminths.

Dr. Hite and her team work on puzzles to understand the proximate and ultimate drivers of pathogen evolution, sometimes from the pathogen’s perspective, other times from the hosts, usually in multiple host-pathogen/parasite systems, often using a combination of molecular and quantitative tools from ecology, epidemiology, and evolution, and increasingly, with extension and art-science outreach projects that seek to bridge the gap between the needs of complex human societies and the amazing environments we inhabit. Dr. Hite is a population ecologist by training where feedbacks between consumer-resource dynamics are key to understanding complex systems.

Dr. Hite is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the School of Veterinary Medicine and an Affiliate in the Department of Integrative Biology. Before joining UW-Madison, Dr. Hite was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in Clay Cressler's lab (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), an EPA STAR PhD student with Dr. Spencer Hall (Indiana University-Bloomington), a Fulbright Scholar working with conservation groups and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panamá. This Fulbright experience occurred at the height of a fungal outbreak that continues to decimate amphibian populations and played a pivotal role in shifting the direction of her research toward epidemiology and public health.

For the past 10 years, my main focus has been on metamorphosis in the ocean, a process that has evolved numerous times in animals and non-animals. Across kingdoms, planktonic propagules face similar challenges: surviving (and in some cases growing) util they reach a "competent" stage to transform into juveniles, identification of suitable juvenile habitat when they arrive there, deciding whether to settle therein or wait for a potentially higher quality settlement habitat, and accomplishing the transformation itself. I use the word "challenges" here purposefully, as these early life stages need to function effectively as larvae and then make instantaneous decisions to abandon that life stage, undergoing what can be profound physiological and morphological changes into a benthic juvenile stage. A detailed understanding of this common yet diverse life cycle transformation that occurs at metamorphosis in marine organisms is not merely an intriguing cross-disciplinary problem, it represents a major knowledge gap that limits our understanding of and ability to predict trends in marine populations. In the face of profound anthropogenic ocean change, increasing our knowledge of these issues will be a key piece in our efforts to protect threatened marine ecosystems.

I am broadly interested in the nexus of ecology, development and evolution. Specifically. I am fascinated by how organisms assess their internal and external environments to make informed, consequential life history decisions. To me, the ultimate example of this phenomenon is metamorphosis, a process that has evolved numerous times in both animals and non-animals. I have studied the internal mechanics of metamorphosis –where developmental changes underlie both subtle and profound evolutionary change– and how marine larvae evaluate their external environment in order to increase their very long odds of recruitment into adult populations. I am committed to addressing climate change, which I have done largely through educational outreach.

I am interested in sensory biology especially in marine systems. I am particularly interested in sensory systems such as extraocular photoreception and vision across vertebrates and invertebrates.

I am currently pursuing my PhD in Biological Sciences at Dr. Heather Bracken-Grissom's CRUSTOMICS Lab at Florida International University.

As a mid-career faculty member at the UNT I actively foster transdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary curricula crossing several boundaries from applied to pure science. I strive to introduce new technological innovations from applied mathematics, physics, chemistry and engineering, to the study of bioenergetics, developmental biology, and ecological physiology as well as, applied fields such as sustainable seafood production and aquaculture.

Professional Preparation:
Ph.D. Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (Physiology) 1994
M.Sc. McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (Oceanography) 1989
B.Sc. (Honours) Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (Biology) 1983

I am interested in using spatial and genetic data to answer biogeographic questions.

Undergraduate student studying Ecology & Conservation Biology and Entomology at Texas A&M University.

Professor Hutchinson has worked on extant and extinct animals ranging from birds and crocodiles to elephants and many other mammals as well as extinct dinosaurs and early tetrapods. John uses a combination of theoretical and experimental techniques, from motion analysis or XROMM and force platforms to simple 2D static mechanics or complex 3D fully dynamic computer simulations.

John Hutchinson is a Professor of Evolutionary Biomechanics. John's research straddles the fields of evolutionary biology and biomechanics, with an emphasis on how very large animals stand and move and how locomotion evolved in different groups of land vertebrates. He is an American biologist who found a new home in the UK as a dual citizen. He gained a BS degree in Zoology at the University of Wisconsin in 1993, then received a PhD in Integrative Biology at the University of California with Kevin Padian in 2001, and rounded out his training with a two-year National Science Foundation bioinformatics Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Biomechanical Engineering Division of Stanford University with Scott Delp. John started at the Royal Veterinary College as a Lecturer in Evolutionary Biomechanics in 2003 in the Department of Veterinary Basic Sciences (now Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences), in 2008 became a Reader, and in 2011 became a full Professor.

I am a doctoral student in the Marine and Environmental Sciences at Northeastern University. My interests are in functional micromorphology and of invertebrates in the rocky intertidal and shallow subtidal, specifically Asteroids and subsequent trophic cascades across species environmental gradients. My previous work focused on intertidal ecosystems in Northern California. In my undergraduate, I worked on biodiversity of invertebrates and algae in the rocky intertidal spanning fifteen sites. During this time, I also monitored Sea Star Wasting Disease in the sea star Leptasterias spp in the laboratory and in all local species in the field.
My master’s work, was focused on aboral spine variation in the keystone predator Pisaster ochraceus, the ochre sea star, across environmental gradients with locations from Washington to Northern California. That project molded a lot of my current interests of blending natural history and modern technology including field assays, histology, scanning electron microscopy, micro CT scanning, and more.
Overall, my interests and experiences vary across intertidal and subtidal habitats to understand ecological relevance of organismal variation. In the Helmuth lab, I hope to continue rigorous science, but also connect with the community and synthesize the information for public consumption. Ideally, this is done with the hopes of making science more accessible, entertaining, and approachable for all.

I received my Bachelors in Zoology and Masters of Biology from California Polytechnic Humboldt. I am currently obtaining my doctorate in Marine and Environmental Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.